Wednesday, March 15, 2017

San Gabriel Cholula. Francis disrobes

In a previous post we looked at two cloister murals at San Gabriel depicting key scenes from the life of St. Francis: his conversion, and the presentation of the Franciscan Rule to the Pope.

A third, closely related fresco in the sequence portrays Francis disrobing before Bishop Guido of Assisi,as his well dressed parents look on in evident shock. With miter and episcopal crook, the sympathetic Bishop is seated on a sumptuous throne with a “song scroll” arm—a pose almost identical to the Presentation scene. Although the mural is dated 1530, it was almost certainly completed later.

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Mexican Murals

For most people, Mexican murals bring to mind the large scale, revolutionary murals decorating the walls of many public buildings, painted by Rivera, Orozco, Siqueiros, their followers and successors.

In contrast, this new blog will focus on a much earlier era of mural painting, one that flourished during the 16th century in the conventos and churches of Mexico, as part of the “spiritual conquest” of Mexico undertaken by the missionary Orders, primarily the Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians.

Some of these early colonial murals have already been described in our other blog, which we are re-posting in this blog . Many others will follow, and as with our other blog, we plan to highlight murals of special historic, cultural or artistic interest.